Practice Policies

Wellness searches for new levels of excellence.

Digital Requirements

Dr. Yvonne uses an electronic medical record, and communicates mostly through a patient portal. She provides summaries of her recommendations on the patient portal. Please make sure you are comfortable with this. You will need a valid email address and have just enough computer savvy to check your email and log-in to the patient portal in order to get the most benefit from her practice.

Payment and Insurance

Northern Illinois Center for Functional Medicine (NICFM) is not contracted with insurance companies, and is an out-of-network provider. If you have a PPO insurance, you may submit a form to your insurance to recoup a portion of your costs. Dr. Yvonne will provide you with the necessary codes in the form of a “super bill”. HMO insurances do not reimburse for out-of-network providers. Payment is required at the time of service. Accepted forms of payment are cash, check, or credit/debit card.There will be a $25 charge if a check is returned for insufficient funds.

Medicare Information

NICFM does not participate in Medicare. If you are a Medicare Part B beneficiary and wish to become a patient of NICFM, per Medicare guidelines you are required to accept the terms and conditions set forth in a Private Contract between you and Dr. Yvonne. This Private Contract provides that absolutely no Medicare payments will be made to you or to NICFM for the services provided, even if such services are normally covered by Medicare. Under the Private Contract, you acknowledge that you accept full responsibility for the payment of charges for all services rendered by NICFM.

Cost of Treatment

Dr. Yvonne’s fee structure is simple: $400 per hour spent. Please refer to the Costs of Treatment page for further information.

Lab Testing

Most insurances will cover testing from conventional labs. Dr. Yvonne may also recommend testing from functional-medicine lab companies, which may not be covered. You will be advised of the reason for the testing and possible out-of-pocket expenses of functional-medicine labs prior to committing to do them.Insurance companies may deem that some labs are “experimental” and deny coverage.If coverage for labs is crucial to you, you should contact your insurance company to inquire.Dr. Yvonne does not do pre-approval requests for labs, as it has been her experience that if the company requires this the answer is universally “not covered” for reasons of being considered “experimental”.

Late Arrival/Cancellation

At least 2 business-days notice is required for cancellations.Dr. Yvonne understands that emergencies happen and are unavoidable.However, she is reserving time for you in her schedule, and potentially turning patients away to give you a reserved appointment time.If an emergency happens that results in a cancellation less than 2 business-days before your appointment time, or you no-show an appointment, you will be asked to provide a credit card guarantee prior to rescheduling.This information will be kept on file, and $100 will be charged for future no-shows or late cancellations.

Test Results

Dr. Yvonne will notify you if any of your lab results require urgent action. Otherwise, test results will be reviewed at your next scheduled appointment. Results for test kits that are sent to specialized labs generally have a 3-4 week turnaround time, so please be sure to schedule a follow up appointment approximately 4 weeks from the time you submit test kits.

Emails to Physician

Emails should be brief, consisting of one or two questions and only a few sentences.If your questions require more than a brief response, Dr. Yvonne will gladly schedule an office visit, as it is important to make sure all your questions and concerns are addressed.

Primary Care Physician

Please note that while Dr. Yvonne is not a primary care physician, she will gladly coordinate care with your other healthcare providers.

I offer complementary phone consultations to make sure we both think my practice is a good fit for you.

Expect to spend about 10 minutes discussing your concerns and I will give you an honest assessment of whether I think I can help you achieve your goals.